PJM0930 wrote:
>The more relevant question with concern to the environment and
hunter/gatherer
>societies (including native americans) is whether their way of life is
really
>ecologically stable. In other words, there is the idea that the rise to
>agriculture is
>inevitable (but not because of self-organizing complexity) but because human
>poplulations over the life span of the species have proved to demographically
>unstable and that agriculture and state structures arise hand in hand as a
>result
>of the crisis. What this suggests for the Native Americans is that, given
>the fact they produced a number of agricultural civilizations, is that they
>were on the same trajectory as the rest of humanity but, for whatever reason,
>had a later start at it.
>
>
Hi, PJM0930. Do you know my friend QZX1288?
This raises an interesting question which the world-systems theorists have
grappled with. That is the question of whether the European model of
development was something that all societies are destined to follow as long
as there is no outside interference. If Europe had not subjugated Latin
America, Africa and Asia, would they have become world powers themselves?
The Chinese had an enormous fleet of ocean-crossing ships in 1400. The
largest ship could contain Columbus's entire fleet. The Chinese sailed to
East Africa and had extensive trade in places like Dar Al-Salaam for some
decades. Then the Emperor decided to call it quits. How unlike the
gold-hungry Europeans!
Marx argued that the Asiatic Mode of Production was static, hence
capitalism could not develop internally. Frank argues against this, and I
will post his second installment today. But what of the hunter-gatherers?
What are the internal economic forces that would spur them in the direction
of feudalism or capitalism? I am afraid that Engel's "Origins of the
Family" has caused us to adopt a very schematic understanding of social
development as being something like the 4 years of a college education.
Barbarism, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism. When you graduate from
socialism, you get a BA and are allowed to enter Communism.
Louis Proyect
